AURORA'S SUNRISE
AURORA'S SUNRISE
After being expelled by the Ottoman army, Aurora was sent on a death march, witnessed murder and rape, looting and shootings, was twice sold by human traffickers, escaped from a harem, survived by hiding with a Kurdish family and later escaped, finally ending up in St. Petersburg and subsequently, with the help of the US-based Near East Relief organisation, the USA. Once there she recorded her experiences, which became the basis for the Hollywood feature film AUCTION OF SOULS (1919, also known as RAVISHED ARMENIA), which became a box office success. The money raised went to benefit Armenians in need. Aurora, who herself played the lead actress in the film, was plagued by retraumatisation. AURORA'S SUNRISE combines animated scenes, episodes from the rediscovered 18-minute-long fragments of the once full-length feature film and original interview footage with the heroine herself, who passed away in 1995. AURORA'S SUNRISE was Armenia's official entry for the 2023 Academy Awards.
Text: Bernd Buder
06.11.2024 | 13:00 | Kammerbühne (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)
08.11.2024 | 13:00 | Stadthalle (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)
Inna Sahakyan, Kerstin Meyer-Beetz, Peter Liakhov
Tigran Kuzikyan
Christine Aufderhaar
Inna Sahakyan - Inna Sahakyan is a film director and producer from Armenia. In 2022 she completed the feature-length animated narrative documentary Aurora's Sunrise, a monumental seven-year project made in coproduction with Germany & Lithuania with Eurimages support, which premiered at Annecy and will be broadcasted on Arte in 2023. Her award-winning documentaries include the Armenian-Dutch coproduction Mel, & the Armenian-Amero-Japanese-Finnish coproduction The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia, which was broadcasted on PBS (US), NHK (Japan), YLE (Finland) and other international channels. Inna is currently developing several documentary projects, including Shakespeare Goes Armenian, alongside various TV programmes.
